An Alternative to Evolution: Expounded Upon (Introduction)

dhw: This is a quibble. You accept common descent (i.e. that all life forms except the very first descended from earlier life forms), but you reject gradualism and accept punctuated equilibrium, and you believe in design not chance.

David: Not a quibble, as there are two ways to define common descent, an entirely natural one which I reject and process designed and managed by an agency, God. I was really debating with Tony his dispensing with the common descent idea completely. I think I can define it in a way he might accept.

dhw: Throughout this discussion, you have both tried to conflate evolution with the way evolution may have proceeded. There is only one way to define common descent:

Common descent describes how, in evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share a most recent common ancestor. There is "massive"[1] evidence of common descent of all life on Earth from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA).[1][2]In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA, by comparing the genomes of the three domains of life, archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes.

Tony: This is the part I have a problem with: ALL LIFE from ONE LUCA. There are too many problems with that concept for me to accept it.

What LUCA might have contained as a gene structure is a scientific guess, and is only one representation of how the organism really operated to maintain its life, which involves homeostatic mechanisms well beyond the number of genes.

Tony rejects this, but you accept it. And it makes no difference to the meaning of the term common descent whether God designed it or not.

dhw: I don’t like to break in on this happy biblical accord, but I'm feeling lonely. David, would you please confirm that you believe in common descent, and reject the bible’s separate creation of each species, including man.

David: I agree in an overall view that single cells were the start of life and subsequent steps became more and more complex until humans arrived. I don't reject the separate creation Bible theory, since I also think God stepped into the process continuously or at various points (dabbling). None of me is on your picket fence.

Davids version is certainly a possibility, primarily because it accounts for the addition of new information when needed to account for things that simply were not needed in previous iterations of life.